What You Are
by Anime Girl23
Summary: Vampire Diaries crossover - Noah Elijah Schmidt died on July 23, 1943. He woke up that night, scared and gasping as he opened his eyes and found himself buried under bodies in a mass grave. Nothing was ever the same after that. He learned to live as what he'd become, but he was never supposed to fall in love with her. Quinn's life was never supposed to turn out this way. Puck/Quinn


Okay, so I wrote this way back in December 2011, so... Figured it was time to get this baby posted. This more of a _vague_ TVD crossover, hence why it wasn't posted in the crossover section. Although I use the type of vampires seen on the show, canon TVD characters only feature short mentions rather than actual appearances. Knowledge of the show is _not _required to understand this story.

As always, reviews are love. Even if it's something short, they make me smile and help get me in a writing mood.

Disclaimer: Neither Glee nor TVD belong to me.

**WARNINGS: **Contains dark themes like death (notice _when _Puck died) and non-graphic talk of rape and attempted suicide.

What You Are  
One-shot

Noah Elijah Schmidt died on July 23, 1943.

He woke up that night, scared and gasping as he opened his eyes and found himself buried under bodies in a mass grave. Too terrified to scream lest someone discover he didn't die in the gas chamber, he muffled his sobs as best he could and dug his way to the surface, crawling over the cold bodies of people that he had come to know.

His little brother, Ezra, was near the surface, body stiff in rigamortis and Noah cried. The boy was only twelve.

It just marked the third member of his family to die since the Nazis pulled them from their home a year ago. His grandmother had died on the journey. His father was shot dead when he tried to stop the men from dragging his mother away. He hadn't seen his sisters since he was separated from them that day and they were taken to different camps. For all he knew, they were dead as well. Aliza was only six. Talia was fourteen, but she had always been a sickly girl.

Noah pushed the thoughts of his sisters away as he dug and kissed his brother's cheek once as tears spilled down his face and the smell of gas filled his nose.

When he broke the surface, still waist deep in bodies, he saw him. Light brown hair that shone off the light of the moon and blue eyes like ice, arms crossed over his chest. The man wasn't even a Nazi from what Noah could tell and he had no idea how this man had made it into Auschwitz as anything but a soldier or a prisoner, but something about the man before him was enough to scare him.

Noah flinched, eyes falling shut. He waited for the bang of a gun, sure that he was going to die this time.

"Get up."

He scrambled over the bodies and out of the ditch, eyes on the ground and hands cupped in front of him to hide his naked body. As if he still had any dignity to hold on to.

"Congratulations," the man said as if this was some kind of victory. He must have caught Noah's frown despite his bowed head because he chuckled. "I got bored. You got turned."

"Turned?" he asked before he could stop himself. His voice sounded hoarse.

"Stay out of the sun. You might want a drink soon."

He was gone when Noah finally found the nerve to look up, disappeared into the night.

It was just him then, standing naked under the moonlight beside a mass grave. The man had made no sense, but he'd been right about one thing. Noah was thirsty. His throat was dry, aching so badly for something to sooth it that his stomach churned. He had nothing to drink.

With a shake of his head, Noah turned back to the grave. He crawled back in, trying to ignore the bodies beneath him until he found Ezra. Cradled his little brother to his chest and whispered the prayers he'd been taught until the first hints of sunlight began to peek over the horizon. Laying his brother's body back down, he whispered one more prayer, this time for everyone in the grave before he crawled deeper into the sea of bodies. No other place was safe. Nazi's patrolled all over the camp. If he was going to listen to the man's warning about the sun (and he'd been right about the thirst, so maybe he was right about this), he needed to hide somewhere the soldiers wouldn't search.

Beneath the corpses, no one would find him.

He would only be further buried when more came.

* * *

It didn't take Noah long to figure out that the man had done something to him.

He crawled from his hiding place long after he heard the sounds of movement stop. The bodies he climbed over didn't scare him anymore. He'd been lying with them long enough that his mind had become numb to the corpses around him.

Once out, he stood still. Confused.

Where was he meant to go now? Return to camp just to be sent back to the chamber? Escape? _How_? The camps were so heavily guarded.

"Filth!"

Noah jumped, terrified as he heard people approaching again. Dove back onto the pile of bodies and forced his body to relax. Forced himself not to flinch as a gunshot rang out and another body was dumped in beside him.

The smell of blood hit him hard and his entire body stiffened as his eyes flew open. His throat ached and he swallowed thickly. Gasped as the blood spread and touched his hand, warm and sticky.

The soldier heard him and spun around then, cocking his gun. He sprang from the grave with an almost unnatural speed and then the soldier was lying under him, grappling for his gun as blood blossomed from a cut on his head.

He stared at it, transfixed, and touched it, even as the soldier shouted at him. Raised his hand to his tongue for a reason he didn't understand and…

Oh, God.

There were no words for the taste on his tongue. Like a man in a desert finding his first drink of water. Salvation. Those descriptions weren't even close to describing.

He couldn't help running his tongue over the wound, lapping at the blood.

Something snapped in him and he gasped as something in his face shifted. The man below him looked terrified, suddenly silent as Noah latched onto his neck. Pierced his skin and drank, moaning against his skin as he fed.

He kept drinking until there was nothing left and pulled back sharply as his chest heaved, staring down at the dead body of the Nazi. His stomach churned at the sight before him, at the realization that _he_ had done this. He had killed a man who, although a monster to his people, was still considered human by powers higher than him.

He scrambled off of the body, shaking and gagging as memories invaded his mind. The face of the man from the night before. They'd still been in the main areas of the camp then when the man had grabbed him, shoved him into a dark alley, and-

His face. Oh, God. His face. Red eyes and black veins that stood out against pale skin. Fangs sharp as razors as they tore into the man's wrist.

He'd shoved the bloody wrist to Noah's mouth. Made him drink the blood that poured out.

Looked him dead in the eyes and told him to forget and to get in line for the gas chamber.

The man had killed him, but not before destroying him first.

* * *

He escaped the camp in the dead of night, dressed in the too-big uniform of the man he'd killed. Found refuge from the sun in an abandoned house and hid in the cellar until the sun had disappeared over the horizon. The sun could and would kill him if he ventured into it, that much he knew. He'd known it since the moment he'd let curiosity get the best of him and reached out into the light.

The pain had been too much.

As he sat in that cellar and more cellars over the next few years, he wished he had the strength to withstand the pain so he could die, _truly_ die, because while his heart may not beat anymore, he was still living in some perverted sense of the term. He'd become one of those monsters that childhood nightmares were made of.

He was a vampire.

* * *

Ten years after he woke up in the mass grave, a witch tried to set him on fire.

Elizabeth Martin was nineteen, her dark hair pulled up into a high ponytail. She'd been wearing a blue dress and saddle shoes.

Her aim sucked.

He slammed her against the side of a building as his fangs dropped and his eyes changed. Never to kill her. He hadn't killed anyone since the Nazi at the camp. He only wanted to scare her.

She wasn't scared, though. She just stared at him, completely calm, and told him that drinking from her would only kill him. Vervain. That stupid plant that he'd already learned could not only burn him, but that if he ingested it… He didn't want to ever do that again. The small taste from the wrong stolen blood bag had been bad enough.

He didn't kill Elizabeth and she stopped trying to kill him as they stood on the dark London street.

Maybe his refusal to hurt people was his saving grace, but she became his friend. Charmed a leather bracelet for him so he could walk in the sun again. Erased the tattoo on his arm that brought him nothing but pain. Gave him a home.

She found Aliza.

Finding out that Talia had died a month before himself had hurt. A lot. But when Elizabeth guided him to Aliza's home…

He knew introducing Aliza to this life he lived now was selfish, but when he was almost completely alone in the world…

He needed her.

To Aliza, all she needed was the reassurance that he was still her Noah. She saw the person he was rather than the _thing_ he had been turned into. It seemed surreal, but with the horrors she'd seen in the camps, the idea of the supernatural seemed to scare her less than the true darkness of the human heart.

He traveled between homes over the years, living with Elizabeth's family for a while before he'd move back to Aliza. As the girls grew older and made families for themselves, they kept him included. Raised their children to know who Noah was and to play along. Pretend he was an uncle, a cousin, a brother.

He'd lost count of how many times he graduated from different high schools across the world. Got the diploma and burned it, because it didn't matter in the end. He would just move to a new place and do the same things. Meet the same high school clichés that would become his friends, graduate, lose them, and do it all over again.

Then, he moved in with Rena and Sarah Puckerman (such distant relatives now that he wondered if they were still related to him at all) when they relocated to Lima after her divorce.

He met Quinn Fabray on his second day in town when he was introduced to his English class as Noah Puckerman. He was a freshman that year, a little mature looking for his age, but the nickname and the Mohawk seemed to help. She was already dressed in a Cheerios uniform, working her way up the ranks to head cheerleader with her sights on Finn Hudson.

Quinn Fabray was the first time he'd felt himself begin to fall in love since he'd been human.

Tried not to because it would only end in heartbreak.

Dove into other girls and tried his absolute best to shut off his feelings without turning off the humanity he'd clung to since he was turned.

Knew he'd failed when he found Quinn in her backyard, half-naked and crying as she was raped and he felt something in him break.

Quinn's rapist was the second person Puck had ever killed.

He ripped the guy off of her so fast that his neck snapped.

It didn't stop him from ripping his heart out just for good measure.

Quinn sobbed, curled up and shaking as she tried to cover her lower half and fix her ripped Cheerios top. "Don't," she begged when he knelt down next to her, wiping his bloody hand on his pants.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered. _Promised_. Swallowed back the lump in his throat and knew what he had to do. "Quinn, look at me. I just want to help."

"How?"

When she raised her eyes to him, he felt his own burn. He didn't even bother to hide it. He just looked in her eyes.

"You're going to forget," he told her, watching as her face went slack and she stared at him blankly. "You're going to forget this happened. You're going to stay here for another ten minutes while I break up the party and then you're going to go into your house. Shower. Go to bed. All you'll remember is that the party was fun. That… That you and I had a few wine coolers. We had sex. That's why you're sore. You…" He swallowed thickly and put his clean hand on her cheek. "You regret it."

He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Told himself that he'd had to do it. He could make her forget this, but he couldn't erase the damage that had done. Even if he gave her his blood, it wouldn't change anything. She'd still be sore. She'd still have had her first time stolen from her.

Maybe he should have told her that Finn had come over, that he had been her first time. He could have compelled Finn too just to make it work, but he let himself be selfish. He couldn't have her in reality, but maybe he could in a fantasy.

"Ten minutes," he told her, waiting until she nodded at him dully and whispered the words back before he ran back to the party. Dipped his hands in the pool so no one saw the blood and hoped everyone was too drunk to see the stain on his jeans.

He cleared everyone out in just under ten minutes. Dashed up to Quinn's room and messed up the blankets so it looked like people had been in there. She was walking back into the house just as he placed the wine coolers on her nightstand. Made sure to pour the contents of a couple down the kitchen sink just to make it look real.

He stood in the corner of her room as she came in from her shower, hair wet and body dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top. She didn't even look at him as she gave the blankets a guilty look and crawled underneath. He stayed there for hours, watching her sleep, until he just couldn't take it anymore and returned to the woods. Buried the body miles past the Lima city limits.

No one ever knew what happened to the quarterback of the JV football team.

* * *

"Quinn's pregnant. She's keeping the baby."

His world broke.

* * *

The idea made him sick when he first found out. The idea that Quinn was carrying the baby of the man that raped her and believing that the baby was Puck's, even as she lied to Finn, holding onto the life she wanted with both hands.

He felt sick, with what happened and with what he'd made Quinn believe. That asshole might have raped her body, but he couldn't let go of the guilt that he'd basically raped her mind. He told himself he'd had to do it, that if he hadn't, the truth would have broken Quinn beyond repair, especially when she discovered the pregnancy.

He had only been trying to protect her.

He had only been trying to protect her and in doing that, he had given her every reason to hate him. She lost her family. She lost Finn. She lost her reputation. She lost everything.

But as her stomach grew bigger and he could see her loving this child, he felt himself loving it too. This baby, this little girl, was Quinn's. And maybe if he let himself believe it, she was a part of him too. Not in genetics, but…

He had always wanted to be a father.

When Beth was born and she was all Quinn, he could have cried. He _did_ cry, but only once he was alone. Signing the papers put a pain in his chest that he hadn't felt since Aliza died. He told himself to ignore it, that it was the right thing to do. He might have loved this little girl, but she wasn't his, and he had promised Quinn that he would do whatever she wanted.

Knew a part of Quinn wanted to keep Beth, but there was something in her eyes and he wondered, terrified for a moment, if she knew. If she remembered Greg O'Brien.

Told himself she couldn't possibly know and forced himself to put the pen to paper.

* * *

Junior year came and went, and he watched as Quinn fell apart.

* * *

Senior year came and when Beth and Shelby came along with it, they both fell apart.

Staring at that little girl that looked every bit like Quinn, even down to the way she raised an eyebrow, he fell more in love with this child and with her mother than he thought was possible. Let himself hide in Shelby and pretend that everything was okay when it wasn't.

Watched as Beth left their lives again and something in Quinn broke.

She pretended that she was okay, but as senior year wore on, he saw the changes.

A week before prom, he found her lying in her bath tub, wrists slashed, and waiting to die.

He forced his own bloody wrist against her mouth and made her drink until her own gashes healed.

She screamed at him when she woke up. Didn't understand what happened to her cuts, but only paid attention to the fact that she was still _alive_. He looked her dead in the eye and told her that she wasn't allowed to die like this. That he wouldn't let her.

She slapped him and didn't speak to him until for the rest of senior year, but at least she was alive.

Noah Puckerman disappeared after that. His time in Lima was over and he was running out of time before the point would come that people would see that he didn't age.

Quinn saw him again a year later when he'd found his way to Mystic Falls and fallen into the insanity that enveloped the town. He'd become Noah Fabray just because he could, helping his new friends as they fought to destroy the vampire that turned him all those years ago.

_"Congratulations. I got bored. You got turned."_

He hated Klaus.

Quinn slapping him seemed to become a common occurrence, but they didn't get the chance to talk about anything. Not before one of Klaus' vampire/werewolf hybrids attacked her. She drank his blood again, this time, wide-eyed and terrified as he told her it was this or death.

She died the next day, neck snapped when she slipped and fell down the fucking stairs of all things.

Matt gave her some blood to complete the transition.

He taught her the blood bag diet and waited for her memories to resurface like erased memories always did when someone was turned.

Honestly, he'd expected her to slap him again, but when the memories came back, she disappeared. All she left behind was a note, simply saying that she understood why he did it.

She found him in Paris twenty years later, living with Damon and Elena while they tried to live a life that seemed even a little normal.

She stood in his doorway, head down and twisting the charmed ring on her finger. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For saving me," she said. "Every time."

She ran at him then. Crashed into him, her lips pressed against his as she propelled them back so hard that his back made a dent in the wall. The bed they broke was the first of many.

He lay with her after as she lay sprawled over his chest, fingers carding through her hair. Pulled her up so that he could kiss her softly. Gave her neck a nip with human teeth. She shuddered against him.

"I love you," he whispered in her ear later as they were falling asleep.

She turned in his arms and kissed his jaw. "I know," she murmured back. "I love you too."

The End

PLEASE REVIEW!


End file.
